Four Principles for a Just Transition to a Sustainable Economy

The original article has many links. More information on p2p-related policy-making is to be found here.

“The following principles as the framework for a rapid transition to a more just, sustainable and democratic economic future.

1. Replacing corporate control of key economic and financial decisions with democratically accountable institutions and processes.

As Gar Alperovitz, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland argued, the major financial problems facing the US and Europe are primarily political rather than economic. Many American factory workers, farmers and small businesses deeply resent the Wall Street bailout as an unfair and undemocratic handout to the affluent and unaccountable owners and shareholders of the largest banking and financial institutions. That reaction is hardly surprising given the recent acerbic observations by US Senator Dick Durbin, “the banks … are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they, frankly, own the place.”

European politics is also being swept by waves of anger about the unequal and unjust distribution of the costs of austerity measures, and the continuing lack of accountability of the financial institutions who have benefited most from the speculative operations of the deregulated casino economy. The rise of neo Nazi parties like Golden Dawn in Greece highlights the very real potential for this anger to be channelled into chauvinistic and racist populism.

Alternative policy responses canvassed included regulatory measures designed to strengthen the transparency and accountability of financial institutions; revitalising anti trust legislation to break up corporate oligopolies and active encouragement for the rapid expansion of smaller, community controlled banks (see for example the Institute for Local Self Reliance).

As Alperovitz forcefully argues in America Beyond Capitalism, the time may also have come to reopen public debate about bringing the most powerful of financial and infrastructure enterprises into direct public ownership and to revisit the potential of worker owned enterprises and co-operatives of the kind being reinvented in ‘the Cleveland Model’.

2. Reprioritising local rather than global production and distribution systems – particularly in relation to finance, energy and food.

The New Economics Institute has evolved from the E.F. Schumacher Society and shares Schumacher’s enthusiasm for decentralised, human scale economic solutions and institutions. Many conference speakers pointed to the resurgence across the United States of support for local, community based enterprises, financial institutions, food and energy systems (see for example the The Intervale Centre for Community Food Systems in Vermont or the Greenhorns project supporting the revitalization of the next generation of young American farmers.

Importantly this is the first year since World War II that there are more – not less – new farms in America. Many of these new farms and food projects are small holdings, focused on supplying local markets– and many are located in cities as well as in rural communities.

Other examples of local economic initiatives with valuable implications for Australia included.

The Oberlin Project – a collaboration between the City Council, University, community organisations and local businesses designed to “revitalise the local economy, eliminate carbon emissions, restore local agriculture, food supply and forestry, and create a new, sustainable base for economic and community development”.

The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE. BALLE provides a focus for progressive small businesses commited to the following vision. “Within a generation, we envision a global system of human-scale, interconnected local living economies that function in harmony with local ecosystems, meet the basic needs of all people, support just and democratic societies, and foster joyful community life.”

Fixing the Future, a feature length PBS documentary film introducing individuals, communities and organizations across America intent on reinventing the American economy through experiments in local business alliances, community banking, time banking, worker cooperatives and local currencies.

3. Implementing a rapid and complete shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy, along with the other energy efficiency and demand management measures needed to reduce the likelihood of runaway climate change.

In his keynote address, Bill McKibben, CEO of 350.org stressed that, without rapid and effective action to reduce greenhouse gasses, all the fine local social, economic were at grave risk of being overwhelmed by the consequences of climate change.

In a speech of striking relevance to current Australian political debates, he highlighted the urgent need to expose and challenge the pernicious influence of the fossil fuel industry over public debate about climate change. McKibben focussed particular attention on the current 350.org campaign priority: End subsidies to the fossil fuel industry…and transfer these resources to building the green economy.

After all, he noted: “No other industry is allowed to dump its garbage in the streets. Why should it not only be allowed, but subsidized, for the industry that is responsible for the most dangerous product of all, the CO2 that could totally destabilise our planet?”

4. Shifting growth priorities from the consumption of energy and materials to ecological sustainability, health and wellbeing.

Richard Heinberg began his presentation on the key ideas in his recent book, The End of Growth, with a compelling overview of the implications of unsustainable levels of debt, energy consumption and ecological destruction for current assumptions about the inevitability and desirability of economic growth – at least as currently defined.

Heinberg concluded by asking whether it might be time to focus less on growth in the consumption of energy and resources and more on growth in other important social and ecological priorities: community connectedness; time with family and friends; satisfaction from honest work well done; co-operative and productive working relationships; the health of human and ecological systems; happiness; creativity; and the beauty of built and natural environment.

Many speakers emphasised the importance of new ways of framing and measuring economic development and prosperity. The NEF’s Happy Planet Index is just one example of a host of creative international initiatives aimed at replacing narrow GDP based metrics with broader indicators of social and ecological wellbeing.

Australian-based founder of The Post Growth Institute, Donny McLurcan also reminded the audience that practical, living examples of the ways in which alternative economic paradigms are already being enacted are an essential basis for encouraging people and communities to move from analysis and critique to active political participation.”

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WRITTEN BY

Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens is the founder and president of the P2P Foundation and works in collaboration with a global group of researchers in the exploration of peer production, governance, and property. Bauwens travels extensively giving workshops and lectures on P2P and the Commons as emergent paradigms and the opportunities they present to move towards a post-capitalist world.
In the first semester of 2014, Bauwens was research director of the floksociety.org which produced the first integrated Commons Transition Plan for the government of Ecuador, in order to create policies for a 'social knowledge economy'.
In January 2015 CommonsTransition.org was launched. Commons Transition builds on the work of the FLOK Society and features newly revised and updated, non-region specific versions of these policy documents. Commons Transition aims toward a society of the Commons that would enable a more egalitarian, just, and environmentally stable world. He is a founding member of the Commons Strategies Group, with Silke Helfrich and David Bollier, who have organised major global conferences on the commons and economics.